A panel discussion on why and how archivists & historians preserve the heritage of the Miners' Strike for the labour movement, accompanied by a display

Join us for the second part of our commemoration of the 40^th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike!

This panel discussion will hear from archivists and historians on the importance in preserving the heritage of the Miners’ Strike for future generations of the Labour movement. Hear panellists discuss their role in maintaining stories of the Strike that would otherwise be hidden and what we can learn from them, how archivists have preserved records during and since the Strike, and the ongoing work to look after labour movement archives today.

There will also be a chance to see a display of some of the amazing material from the Miners' Strike held in our collections.

• Liz Wood, Project Archivist at the Modern Records Centre

Liz Wood has worked as an archivist at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, since 2006. She is currently cataloguing the archives of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as part of 'Mining the Past', a three year grant-funded project (2023/6).

• Keith Gildart, Professor of labour and social history, ex-miner

Keith Gildart is a Professor of Labour and Social History. After working as an underground coal miner for seven years he studied at the universities of Manchester and York. Keith is an expert in the historiography of the Strike and was instrumental in saving the NUM archive.

• Matt Dunne, Archivist & Volunteer Coordinator at the Marx Memorial Library

Matt Dunne works with the archival collections at the Marx Memorial Library and is carrying out a 2 year cataloguing project on the library’s Printworkers Collection. He will discuss how the library reacted to the strike at the time, and some of the links of solidarity from the Miners’ Strike shown in our collections.

Discussion chaired by Meirian Jump, Director of the Marx Memorial Library